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Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Of purchases

Fogive me if I seem a bit distracted this post, I just got The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Collector's Extended Edition, and I promptly plopped in the first Appendicies disc. After that, I stuck in the second one. I'm saving the film for Saturday, when I will watch all three extended editions.

Last Saturday, I attempted to go Christmas shopping. I started at the Sprint store, where I got something for my brother. Then I went to Radio Shack on a whim, where I saw a Franklin Bible (it's an electronic search tool) on clearance. My last one got stolen along with the rest of my Bible stuff, so I sprung for it. Next, I headed across the parking lot to the Goodwill. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for, but I saw some interesting things. There was a table that opened up to reveal a spring-loaded sewing machine that popped into place. $9.99, if anyone's interested. There were no Dr. Seuss books in the children's section; they probably get snatched up immediately when people are foolish enough to get rid of them (or is it a sad lack of foolishness?) What my eye finally settled on was a photo printer. It looked to be in good condition. Nothing broken, and the power cord included, so then why would anyone donate it to the Goodwill? I opened it up and examined the carteiges. The black cartrige looked and felt full, but the color cartrige was emply. Someone had bought the printer for over $100, then the color cartrige ran out, so they got rid of it. The price was right: $3.99, so I bought it. When I brought it home, I plugged it in hooked it up, and downloaded its drivers from hp.com. Sure enough, the color cartridge was completely empty. It was also damaged in the back from being taken out and put back in, so the electrical contacts were messed up. Unless I jostled it around properly, the printer didn't recognize the cartridge. The black cartridge was almost completely full, but it printed with streaks. That's probably due to the printer heads, which on HP printers is part of the cartridge, so if I want I can buy a new one of those, but for quick grayscale printouts, I'm keeping my old one on-line. I bought a store-brand color cartridge at staples down the street and presto! Photo quality printing, and all for under $35.00.

The first thing I printed was CD labels, because the next day I burned some new favorites MP3 CDs for my car. I recently got the Kill Bill Soundtracks, which are awesome. There's a flamanco mix of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, as well as a pan flute The Lonely Shepherd. There's also that whistling one-eyed nurse tune that freaks people out (literally).

I still haven't gotten the bulk of my Christmas shopping done. Between the goodwill and home, I went to the mall, as well as a few other stores. The only potential gift I found all day there was something for my little sister, who is the one person I already had a gift for. So if anyone needs any ideas for her, give me a call.